Design for Assembly

Design for Assembly (DFA) is a process where products are designed with ease of assembly in mind for both the part you are designing and the end product it is going into. If we can design or help our client design products with less parts and less types of material it will reduce set-up and reduce assembly time both for us and when the client goes to fit on his end product. This usually has the effect of reducing the total cost of parts in the assembly which we can pass onto our clients.

With large OEM’s getting changes made after the test stage is very difficult and costly so the critical time to work with the client is at the design stage where we can offer our expertise having worked with many clients at this stage of the process. For example welding and grinding are very expensive processes that through CNC folding rather than welding significant cost could be removed. We have also taken BOMS from 80 different components done to 40 in the past. Cost gains made here will last for the full life cycle of the product.

Keltech’s technical team will support the client to realise these savings through site visits and more recently through software where shared screens are used and the flow of information can happen very quickly and agreed changes can happen. By taking a holistic view we look at areas like

How many types of sheet steel are in the design, are they all needed, can we reduce to the magical 1 type.

The manufacturing process, can we reduce the number of steps, as a lean manufacturing company we know the 7+1 wastes and design for assembly can remove unnecessary manufacturing steps.

The specifications of steel and assembly components, are they over specified , are they off the shelf so we can reduce lead-time, a lot of fastener companies have long lead time with large MOQ’s, better to know that at the design stage

Where is the part going, can we reduce the assembly time for the client by changes to the parts ee are manufacturing.

Keltech can apply this principle to all 4 product ranges we specialise in and you will be pleased with the results.